The Team Sky leader had to change a bike and receive medical attention during the stage to cover up his wounds in a scene that brought back memories of his crashes during the Tour de France, and which saw him take an early exit.

The incident caused concern at Team Sky as Froome lost ground quickly. The British squad’s riders had to pace him back up to the peloton over lumpy terrain, a chase which took 15 kilometres to complete.

“I’m feeling okay, but you definitely get the feeling that when bad luck comes it comes more than once,” Froome said via the Team Sky website after the stage. “But all things considered I’m feeling all right and I think I got off relatively unscathed. It’s good to have another day behind us now.”

“When the crash happened a Giant-Shimano rider went down in front of me just to my left. I swerved to try and avoid that and went down. Then the guys paced me back. It took us a good 15km before we got back into the peloton.”

Froome appeared to be ultimately unfazed by the incident and put in a sprint in the stage’s finale to gain two valuable seconds over his key general classification rivals.

Along with seconds gained by contesting an intermediate sprint earlier in the race, Froome is steadily clawing back the 27-second deficit Team Sky suffered over Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana’s Movistar squad during the opening team time trial. He now lies in fourth place, 20 seconds down on race leader Valverde.

“At the end of the race you might need all the seconds you can to defend your place. I’ll keep chipping away and get closer to the time trial,” said Froome.

Chris Froome after a crash on stage seven of the 2014 Tour of Spain

Chris Froome after a crash on stage six of the 2014 Criterium du Dauphine
Credit: Graham Watson